Did you have to shower after PE?

[Quanon]

Question due to a conversation about when this became unacceptable. Was it ever OK? Really? I didn’t ever experience it but DH did, with a teacher enforcing that everyone showered properly. It’s surely not expected now in secondary schools for safeguarding reasons? Our kids certainly don’t.

Were you required to shower after PE at school?

If you could give me an idea of when (decade) and yes or no, it will help our discussion. I wonder if it was more boys than girl?

For us
90s, female, no
90s, male, yes after rugby (teacher watching)

Age 66 and yes at high school.
Looking back now .. l wish I'd refused..

I was at secondary in the 90s, we had compulsory showers. No curtains, a row of showers without partitions between them.

To make sure we showered properly the teacher checked your name off in the register when you handed her your towel to go in and you had to be wet when you came out or you were sent back.

She made a note in the register if you claimed to be on your period and the threat was that they would contact your Mum if you claimed to be on your period too often.

Awful

2010s, there were some showers in the changing room, nobody ever told us to use them and nobody ever did. You had 5 minutes to get dressed and to your next class so I doubt there would have been time to if anyone had decided to shower.
The school was storing the old netball posts in the shower bit by the time I was in year 10 and 11.

You can't imagine what might be difficult for 11 year old girls going through puberty to have their pants checked to see if they were on a period

or being looked up and down by a lesbian pe teacher (yes she was a lesbian and still there as the head teacher now)

or having to parade past the outside of the shower run to rescue your towel - hoping that they boys weren't looking through the windows or one of the male pe teachers (normally the one who eventually got sacked for shagging a year 11) just happened to pop in?

Nope no idea why it would be distressing.

Added to parents being reluctant to give a decent towel and having to use the smallest hand towel to try and cover/hide/dry quickly, or being mocked because your underwear wasn't from the deemed current named shop or you were overweight or had scars or birthmarks etc

it was loads of fun ffs

In the 80s; one open U shape area with showers on the three walls, no curtains or cubicles and the PE teacher used to stand in the "doorway" (no door) and watch. You'd get sent back in if you didn't wash thoroughly enough to appease her. We all believed that she got her kicks from either the power play or the lesbian lechery, probably both.

1983 to 1984 at one school thoroughly hated it so humiliating having to be fully naked in front of everyone age 11/12 when you were fully developed and others weren't. And for some reason the male pe teacher used to hurry us along and funnily enough he became a convicted pervert in 2010 - Bananaman Scalby School Scarborough.
I changed schools because of MH problems and all I can say is thank fuck for some reason the showers were permanently out of order from 84 to 88.
My kids went to secondary school from 2000 onwards and didn't have showers at school.

Early 00s UK - communal showers were available, but no one used them. Girls with female PE teachers.

Incidentally my form tutor was imprisoned for being a paedophile in 1989 the year after we left. It was boys on his computer must have been one of the first convicted for that sort of thing. He was odd and you can say after the event yes I could have guessed but my friends and I at the time sort of said we wouldn't have said so as he wasn't smarmy but he did have loads of boys round all the time talking computers.

So yes being naked in showers with perverts on the loose thankfully came to an end.
I think as a parent I wouldn't have consented to it either no matter how much trouble that would have caused and probably why it stopped who would consent after what we went through.

I left in 1999 we had to shower.
Individual cubicles, walk in to the shower block wrapped in a towel.
Teacher used to stand on the entrance and make sure everyone went in dry and came out wet but didn't enter the block.
The boys had to do "the naked strut" through the communal block.

never had any showers in primary we were expected to strip down to underwear in the classroom boys and girls mixed together.
my first secondary school PE was horrific. we had communal showers towels were taken off us and we were herded into the showers communal and we were stood there girls 11-14 (reason for that age in a mo) naked huddled together for a minimum of five minutes before our towel was given back to us. we were beyond mortified. then the worse part was if we said that we were on our period we would have to show our pad to prove we were right in the changing rooms with everyone present.
after that our school joined several others to make a comprehensive with the changing rooms being newly built. there were individual showers but no one was ever forced to use them and I never saw anyone who did. problem was the school was so bad I was terribly bullied and my life was hell on earth, I tried to skive off as much as possible causing things to be worse when I was dragged back to the school by various teachers. Added to which I had serious problems at home and I was also being / had been sexually abused so my life was/is a living hell

I was glad of the shower though. I hate feeling sticky after exercise.

Left school 1997, showers were available (communal) but they were never used.

Early 80s you had to walk through the line of showers with your towel above your head. Sometimes a member of staff checked you were wet when you came out and sent you back around again if she thought you weren't wet enough.
If you were on your period you had to tell the teacher with the register who would note this.

Late 90s, the changing rooms had communal showers but nobody used them. I still remember my absolute relief on the open day when someone asked about them and we were told it wasn't compulsory. I was generally rule-abiding but I'd have refused that. Any amount of detentions/angry teachers would have been better than being naked in front of everyone.

How do so many of you know your teachers were lesbians?
I was completely oblivious to my teachers sexuality.

How were you completely oblivious to your teachers sexuality?

It was in your face we had lesbian pe teachers at least 4 from what I remember they all went about together they were very open about it 1980s.

We did in the mid-late 90's. My dd doesn't even though PE lessons are single sex only.

Because it was never discussed, and I never thought about it.

We thought all the female pe teachers were lesbians who liked looking at us in the showers. Retrospectively I have no idea if they were lesbians or not.

Yes we had to shower. Female, 90s

Showers were in a block of about 10 either side with open exits at both ends. Teacher would take all the towels at one end, we had to walk through (we ran through), and towels were handed back to us at the other end.

I hated it.

Because it was a small town and she lived with one of the maths teachers (female)

Ours didnt even work for the entire 5 years i was there so not required to use them 😂

When you're in the throes of puberty and feeling rather vulnerable your brain only computes one reason why a bunch of butch, single, middle aged women (always "miss" rather than "Mrs") would take such pains to herd you all through such an ordeal with their clipboards, stopwatches and whistles.

mid-80th
Either shower or a bank of sinks and we all dressed down and washed properly.

DD - never, I don't think her school has showers. Luckily they always had PE last so they went home in smelly sweaty polyester kit.

Yes, very late 80s to mid 90s. Open communal block. Not allowed to take towel so had to hang it on the peg then shower and walk back to peg in changing room to dry. Teacher watching to check everyone had a shower. She was a nice teacher but it was pretty horrible for everyone.